Las Vegas’ Tropicana Resort and Casino, an 1,878-room property owned and operated by Phoenix-based Aztar Corp., added some five-star power to its guest services operations last week when it launched GuestWare, the lodging industry’s leading customer relationship management solution

LAS VEGAS (August 31, 2004) –

Las Vegas’ Tropicana Resort and Casino, an 1,878-room property owned and operated by Phoenix-based Aztar Corp., added some five-star power to its guest services operations last week when it launched GuestWare, the lodging industry’s leading customer relationship management solution. The property will use GuestWare software in its call center, engineering and housekeeping departments to manage guest requests, track and follow-up on incidents, and generate work orders.

“We are excited that the Tropicana Resort and Casino has selected GuestWare,” says Mike Benjamin, v.p. of sales for Diversified Computer Corp., maker of the software. “We are confident that GuestWare’s Rapid Response, Incident Tracking and Work Orders solutions will allow team members at the resort to respond faster to guest requests, better identify and eliminate costly recurring issues, and improve overall guest satisfaction.”

The decision to implement GuestWare at the Las Vegas property was based, in part, on its success at Aztar’s Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City. GuestWare was launched there in May of this year.

“Because GuestWare has had such a positive impact on our hotel operations, the recommendation to the Las Vegas hotel was an easy one,” says Bill Hogan, executive director, communications and marketing research at the Atlantic City property.Guest Response System Centralized

Before Aztar’s Atlantic City resort launched GuestWare, calls from guests who had requests or complaints did not go to a centralized location. Instead, engineering-related calls were handled separately from housekeeping ones. The system was a manual one, inefficient and labor-intensive.

“We had to handwrite all of our tickets,” Hogan says. “There was no tracking of work orders or tickets. They were filed in a big box and thrown away.”

Since the new software was installed, all guest calls – for engineering or housekeeping – are funneled through the Hotel Services call center and entered for fast retrieval later. Approximately 19,000 calls are handled each month. Call center agents who answer calls generate a Rapid Response or work order ticket in GuestWare. Because GuestWare uses customizable hot buttons and drill-down menus, requests can be entered quickly. With GuestWare’s interface with the hotel’s LMS property management system, the guest’s name automatically fills in and requests are linked to a profile of the guest’s history at the resort.

After the request is entered into GuestWare, a dispatcher radios the call to an engineer or housekeeper. (While Atlantic City’s Tropicana Casino and Resort chose to use radios for dispatching, GuestWare also supports dispatching via two-way messaging or e-mail.) The GuestWare Call Monitor screen displays the status of all open requests and alerts the dispatcher when the request is overdue. GuestWare displays new calls sorted by elapsed time. When an issue is resolved, the engineer or housekeeper radios back to the dispatcher who then closes the call within GuestWare.

If a guest call results in a work order being issued, GuestWare’s Work Orders system is used. The system provides the ability to enter, print, monitor and close work orders quickly and efficiently. GuestWare automatically tracks response time and provides a follow-up feature to monitor unfinished assignments. The system also tracks the costs incurred from each work order.

“Thanks to GuestWare, we not only changed the tools we use to track and monitor guest calls, we changed the processes by which we do that,” Hogan says. “We have very few on-hold calls. We are able to process our calls quicker and we are able to track everything in real time. Guest requests no longer fall through the cracks.”

Atlantic City’s Tropicana Casino and Resort currently has 1,624 rooms in three hotel towers. In October 2004, The Quarter at Tropicana will open with 502 additional hotel rooms in the all new Havana Tower. The Quarter at Tropicana is a $275 million expansion project, the largest non-gaming expansion in the history of Atlantic City. Hogan says The Quarter at Tropicana, combined with the fact that casino patrons tend to be more demanding than non-casino hotel guests, makes the addition of GuestWare even more important.

“We expect to be able to handle the higher volume of guest requests much easier with GuestWare,” he says.Reports Pinpoint Recurring Issues

Within the first week of using GuestWare’s Incident Tracking system, management at the Atlantic City’s Tropicana Casino and Resort was able to identify a problem with clogged toilets in the hotel’s West Tower.

“We did not realize there was an issue before GuestWare,” Hogan says. “It was a plumbing issue and our engineers were able to resolve the problem quickly.”

It took just a few clicks for Hogan and his staff to produce the report that showed the plumbing problem. Some of the types of reports or graphs that can be produced out of GuestWare include: request frequency; requests or incidents by time of day, week, staff, or room section; top 10 incidents, and recurring problems by room. Incidents and request data also can be analyzed by cost or “reported by” for any date range.

Work order reports can be produced by incident code, average response time per incident and average response time per person. Reports also can be produced that detail closed and open work orders, and work orders outstanding. The work order summary report details what percentage of the work orders were closed within the hotel’s priority goal.

“As a reporting tool for senior management, GuestWare is phenomenal,” Hogan says. “We can see where our labor is being used and how many hours we are spending on specific projects.”

“I am impressed with Aztar’s implementation and the speed at which they have achieved positive results,” Diversified Computer Corp.’s Benjamin adds. “Change can be difficult, but they proved that with proper planning it can be easy.”

Benjamin says he is confident that GuestWare will have a significant positive impact on the Las Vegas Tropicana Resort & Casino’s ability to provide a first-class experience for its guests.

“We look forward to working with Aztar Corp. as it expands its properties,” he says. “We also look forward to working with other casino operators like Aztar that are interested in adding efficiencies to the guest response process.”About Aztar Corp.:

Phoenix-based Aztar Corporation (NYSE: AZR) is a publicly traded gaming company that owns and operates casinos in five gaming markets: Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, Tropicana Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, the Ramada Express Hotel and Casino in Laughlin, Nev., and Casino Aztar riverboat properties in Evansville, Ind., and Caruthersville, Mo. For more information about Aztar Corp., go to: www.aztar.com.About GuestWare:

GuestWare, Customer Relationship Management software for the lodging industry, is developed, marketed, implemented and supported by Diversified Computer Corp., Seattle. GuestWare is installed in more than 700 hotels worldwide. For more information about GuestWare, go to www.guestware.com, or contact Mike Benjamin at (888) 504-8378.

PermaLink to this Press Release: http://www.guestware.com/company/press-room/press-releases/20040831/